Short answer: Multani is a place name. Gultex is a brand name. A Multani sheet is any sheet woven or printed in the Multan belt of southern Punjab. Gultex is a Multan bed cover business whose name slowly turned into everyday shop language for the heavy printed cloth that region is known for. That is why one shop sells you “Gultex” made by a different mill and another sells “Multani” that came from the same street.
Where the word Multani comes from
Multan sits in the middle of Pakistan’s cotton growing belt. The city has woven cloth for so long that Bahauddin Zakariya University runs a full College of Textile Engineering for it on Khanewal Road. Walk through Hussain Agahi Bazaar in the old city, past Pak Gate and Bohar Gate, and you will still find block printed cloth stacked beside khussas and glass bangles.
Near Multan, in Makhdoom Pur on the old route between Multan, Tulamba and Kabirwala, families kept working wooden pit looms called khaddi at home. Khes and khaddar came off those looms for generations, and were carried to markets in Multan and Khanewal. So when a seller in a Lahore cloth market says “Multani”, they are naming a region and a look. Bold colour. Big repeating print. Cloth with real weight in the hand.
What Gultex actually means today
Gultex is a real business in Multan, based on Tareen Road. The company’s own public records and profiles date the name to 1926 and describe a long history of making bed covers for export.
Then the name escaped the company. Shopkeepers began using it to describe a fabric type, the same way people say Thermos or Surf. Look at product listings across Pakistan and you will read the phrase “pure soti and fancy gultex” in the material field, not the brand field. Some Multan mills sell a “Gultex bedsheet” under their own trade name.
This matters when you shop. Gultex bed sheets from the original Multan house and a sheet labelled gultex by a wholesaler are not automatically the same product. Judge the cloth, not the word.
The fabric point almost nobody prints
Most pages say this cloth is pure cotton. Check published specification sheets from Multan sellers and you usually see something else: 80 percent cotton with 20 percent polyester, or 70 percent cotton with 30 percent polyester.
That blend is on purpose, and it suits a Pakistani home. Cotton gives you the breathing and the soft feel. Polyester holds the shape, resists creasing and slows shrinking. Pure cotton commonly loses somewhere around 3 to 5 percent of its size in early washes. A blend of this kind loses noticeably less, which is why these sheets survive a hard washing machine through a Lahore summer.
The practical way to judge quality here is weight, not thread count. A full king set from Multan weighs roughly 2.4 to 2.55 kg. Lift the packet. Light means thin.
Size is where people get caught
This is the biggest gap in the guides currently online, and it costs buyers money.
King sheets from the Multan trade are cut long. Published measurements include 90 by 106 inches and 90 by 108 inches. A standard king sheet from most Pakistani brands runs closer to 94 by 97 inches or 90 by 95 inches.
So a Multan cut king gives you more drop on the sides and more tuck at the foot. If you are used to a normal king, it will feel oversized on a small double bed. Single pieces are usually 60 by 90 inches, which is why they fit a charpai as easily as a single mattress.
One more thing that confuses first time buyers. A single “pair” set holds two single sheets and two pillow covers. A king set holds one sheet and two pillow covers. Same word, different maths.
What you should be paying
Selling prices across Pakistani stores in August 2026 sit lower than the ranges most articles quote. A king three piece set commonly falls between Rs 1,800 and Rs 3,200. A single pair set commonly falls between Rs 2,300 and Rs 3,450.
Price mostly tracks two things: weight of cloth and cotton ratio. Print quality and the number of pieces in the set matter after that. The word printed on the packet should not move the price much on its own.
Washing so the colour holds
You will see two opposite claims online. One says machine washable and colour safe. The other says hand wash only. Both are half right.
Sellers in this category advertise fast colours and non allergic dyeing, and machine washing is normally fine. But loose surface dye still comes off a new sheet in the first few washes. Wash it alone for the first two or three washes, use cold water and mild detergent, and dry in shade rather than direct Punjab sun. Skip bleach. That is the whole method.
So which one should you buy
Buy for the use, not the label.
For daily family use, a heavier blend in a busy print hides wear and washes well. For a guest room or a dowry set, look for cleaner borders and a tighter print register. For a charpai or a rooftop bed in summer, take the single size, since 60 by 90 inches drops correctly over the frame. For a mattress deeper than 10 inches, take the longer Multan cut on purpose.
You can compare weights, prints and sizes across our Multani bed sheets collection, or see how the texture differs from our embossed range and the wider bed sheets category.
Common questions
Is Gultex the same as Multani?
No. Multani describes where the sheet comes from. Gultex is a Multan business name that became a general fabric term in local shops.
Are these sheets 100 percent cotton?
Usually not. Published specifications commonly show 70 to 80 percent cotton with the rest polyester. That blend reduces shrinking and creasing.
Do they shrink after washing?
Less than pure cotton, because polyester holds the weave. Wash cold and dry in shade to keep the size stable.
What size is a Multan cut king sheet?
Published sizes run around 90 by 106 to 90 by 108 inches, longer than the usual 94 by 97 inch king sold by most Pakistani brands.
How do I judge quality before buying?
Weigh it. A king set from this trade runs roughly 2.4 to 2.55 kg. Then check the print edges for clean registration and ask for the cotton ratio.